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Levi Bellfield has been jailed for life with a whole life tariff for the murder of Milly Dowler. Photograph: Metropolitan Police/PA
Levi Bellfield has been jailed for life with a whole life tariff for the murder of Milly Dowler. Photograph: Metropolitan Police/PA

Levi Bellfield jury discharged over media coverage

This article is more than 12 years old
Jury was deliberating on Rachel Cowles attempted abduction
No retrial, with judge warning of possible contempt proceedings
Mr Justice Wilkie calls Milly Dowler murderer 'cruel and pitiless'
Bellfield told he will never be released

An Old Bailey jury has been discharged without reaching a verdict on an allegation that serial killer Levi Bellfield attempted to abduct 11-year-old Rachel Cowles the day before he snatched Milly Dowler in 2002, with the judge blaming media coverage of the trial.

Mr Justice Wilkie said publicity about the case had left him no option but to discharge the jury and refer the matter to the attorney general, Dominic Grieve, over possible contempt.

There was a huge amount of publicity that should not have been seen by the jury, the judge said after Bellfield – whom he called a "cruel and pitiless killer" – was convicted on Thursday of murdering Milly, who was kidnapped as she walked home from school near his home in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey.

Later, Wilkie said that there would be no retrial over Rachel Cowles and that an attempted abduction charge would lie on file.

The judge sentenced Bellfield to life in jail with a whole life tariff for Milly's abduction and murder and told him he would never be released.

The former wheelclamper and bouncer, who was not in court, is already in prison for murdering 19-year-old Marsha McDonnell and Amelie Delagrange, 22, and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy, 18, in 2004. Bellfield, 43, was given three life sentences for those crimes in February 2008 and told that he would never be released.

The judge said on Friday: "He robbed her [Milly] of a promising life, he robbed her family and friends of the joy of seeing her grow up into a self-confident, articulate and admirable young woman.

"He treated her in death with total disrespect, depositing her naked body, without even a semblance of a burial, in a wood far away from her home, vulnerable to all the forces of nature.

"He is marked out as a cruel and pitiless killer.

"To this is added the fact that, as on another occasion at this court, he has not had the courage to come into court to face his victims and receive his sentence."

The decision to dismiss the jury will prompt questions about the media's reporting of high-profile court cases. A spokesman for the attorney general's office said: "We are aware of this issue [in the Bellfield trial] and will be looking into it."

It can now be reported that the Surrey police force has apologised for missing opportunities in the hunt for Milly's killer that could have led to Bellfield's arrest before he went on to murder those two more victims.

Bellfield, who lived 50 yards from where Milly was last seen, also escaped the net when police, conducting extensive house-to-house inquiries, knocked 10 times at his rented flat without response but made no inquiries of the landlord as to who lived there.

By the time they did, the flat had seen several tenants come and go, with any potential forensic science evidence obliterated by redecorating and steam cleaning. Surrey's chief constable, Mark Rowley, has privately apologised to Milly's parents and to Cowles. He is due to meet privately with relatives of the other victims.

"Mistakes were made," said Assistant Chief Constable Jerry Kirkby. "With the benefit of hindsight there are aspects we would have handled differently.

"Could we have done anything to catch him earlier? We have agonised over that issue."

In May the attorney general's office won permission from the high court to bring contempt of court proceedings against the Sun and the Daily Mirror over their coverage of the arrest of Chris Jefferies in December last year on suspicion of murdering 25-year-old landscape architect Joanna Yeates in Bristol. A date has yet to be fixed for the case to be heard.

Jefferies, a retired teacher, was subsequently released without charge.

Dutchman Vincent Tabak has pleaded guilty to Yeates's manslaughter but denies murder. He is likely to face trial in October.

Lawyers acting for the attorney general said in the high court last month that articles published by the papers would have seriously prejudiced any trial Jefferies might have faced.

More on this story

More on this story

  • Changing the law is a legacy an odious killer doesn't merit

  • Dowlers launch attack on justice system after killer jailed for life

  • Levi Bellfield gets life without parole

  • Statements from Milly Dowler's family

  • Milly Dowler family: we paid too high a price

  • Milly Dowler: Did police mistakes let Levi Bellfield kill again?

  • Levi Bellfield police interview - video

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